User blog:Michael120/Legal Uses of the Universe's Remantents
Legal Uses of the Universe's Remanents As some of you know, I've been dukeing it out with some of the better known people on the wiki about extracting files and the like, and I was going to create the whole big and fancy blog post about it, but decided against it for the sake of clarity. I'm just going to say it up front: Extracting files from LEGO Universe WAS and ALWAYS WILL BE ''ILLEGAL.'' I know, I know, "You have no proofs!"; I sent an email to LEGO Support, and got a reply around a week later here it is for you; "Dear , Thanks for getting in touch with us. , The LEGO Universe game and all of its underlying coding are copyrighted properties of the LEGO Group (except for portions of the software used under license from third parties). We are not licensing the right to copy these files, and are reserving all of our rights to the LEGO Universe game in its entirety. Any unauthorized copying of the software would constitute a violation of LEGO Group copyrights, and possibly other intellectual property rights as well, or, in the case of third party applications, a violation of the intellectual property rights of those third parties. We’re aware that there have been some groups of people trying to recreate the LEGO Universe game on their own. Although we may appreciate their enthusiasm for the game, and understand their disappointment that the game was shut down, we do not encourage these efforts. It is difficult to imagine a scenario whereby anyone could make their own version of the game without violating our rights in some way. The game in its entirety is LEGO Group property—not just the coding, but also the storylines and settings, the graphics, the music, and even LEGO Minifigure characters themselves. I’d hate to see a group of talented and dedicated fans invest a lot of effort into recreating something that we would inevitably need to oppose in order to protect our intellectual property rights." There you go. Now, to make sure you understand... "I'm extracting, not copying!", Same thing; extracting is copying and translating the code into a more usable form. And none of you are licensed to do that. "But I'm not creating a game!", Doesn't matter; you're still using the models/textures/code/anyothercontent with unauthorized permission. You're going against copyright. "Can't I just use the idea of LEGO Universe? It's just the concept..."...which is everything. Take another look at the above email. 'The game in its entirety is LEGO Group property—not just the coding, but also the storylines and settings, the graphics, the music, and even LEGO Minifigure characters themselves.' "So what can I do with the remanents?" Thats a tough one. You can start up the patcher from time to time, or override it and dive into the files and click legouniverse.exe and see the login screen again, with the music. You can even open up the .lfxml files in your models/usermade directory and see all the custom models of all the properties you went to. But thats all. Sorry. That said, I think you're all awesome, but I don't want to see you get LEGO's wrath, and I'm sorry some of you spent all this time rigging and customizing your 'figs and have to throw it all away now, but you have to do it.(This does not pertain to those who made their own; thats their property/ies, not LEGO's). Sorry chaps. The Imagination Lives On. Michael120 20:17, June 10, 2012 (UTC)